Grassroots Memorials: The Politics of Memorializing Traumatic Death, a collection of articles edited by Peter Jan Margry and Cristina Sánchez-Carretero, is a critical and valuable addition to the growing body of scholarship on memorials referred to by a variety of terms (e.g., spontaneous shrine, makeshift shrine, memorial assemblage, and so on). The title of the anthology reveals Margry’s and Sánchez-Carretero’s perspective on the debate, emphasizing a common characteristic of the bricoleurs who participate in the assemblage of these structures rather than any physical aspect of the structures themselves (i.e., spontaneous, makeshift, temporary).
The editors’ introduction alone is an important contribution to scholarship in this area, as it not only outlines their conceptual framework for the use of the term “grassroots memorials,” but also tracks and analyzes developments in this field of inquiry over the past forty-odd years. As Margry and Sánchez-Carretero explain, the articles presented here focus on "the processes of memorialization that express not only grief but also social discontent and protest, and that represent forms of social action" (2). Continuing this line of thought, this kind of memorial’s performativity “is not limited to the memorial itself or its memorial space, but includes the agency of individual objects or texts and the behavior of the people involved” (3). It is in this attention to specific items and the related actions of participants in the case of each memorial that this collection breaks new ground. Margry and Sánchez-Carretero are careful in specifying that in their conception, “grassroots” refers to the actions of individuals, as noted above, rather than the collective action of an organized group. The introduction also provides a discussion of the varied terminology used in memorial discourse, tied to the assemblages’ emergence as a subject of interest in contemporary scholarship and mass media beginning in the 1980s. As it is crucial to their conception of the grassroots memorial, another important aspect of the authors’ discussion of agency is their recognition of the role of broadcast media in memorialization processes.
Given that this anthology focuses exclusively on memorials that can be analyzed as grassroots productions, one might anticipate a certain amount of repetition. However, the wide theoretical and geographical terrain covered by the articles works against such an expectation, rendering reiteration as verification of commonalities around which certain theoretical foundations may reasonably cohere. Historians, folklorists, ethnologists, and anthropologists examine memorials in Italy, the Netherlands, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Venezuela, Spain, and Indonesia. The fourteen chapters are divided into four sections addressing key issues in the analysis of grassroots memorials: negotiating societal violence; contesting objectionable death; sociability and reflexive antiterrorism; and instrumentalizing repositories of memory. Although some of these issues clearly overlap, upon reading the articles the divisions make sense.
A notable thread running through the volume is the recognition of the performativity of the wide selection of written documents left at memorial sites. In chapter 9, for example, Béatrice Fraenkel, who specializes in the anthropology of writing, demonstrates and analyzes this performativity in the case of written offerings left at “street shrines” (her term) in New York City in September, 2011. A reproduction from her field notes reveals the process by which one may begin to systematically inventory and analyze a memorial in situ, in an effort to avoid disturbing it. Similarly, Cristina Sánchez-Carretero’s examination of memorials assembled after the March, 11 train bombing in Madrid reveals a dialogic structure involving “palimpsestic and, at the same time, continuing conversations” (248).
The anthology concludes with a focus on an issue, namely “instrumentalizing repositories of memory,” that has become more and more pressing as these memorials are recognized for the insight they provide, not only into contemporary mourning practices, but also into the full range of cultural expression. What is to be done with all the stuff? The case studies are written by individuals who have wrestled with difficult professional questions, including ethical considerations, in identifying, retrieving, conserving, and displaying items originally left at grassroots memorials in the United States following the events of September 11, 2001, and the murder of Carlo Giuliani during G8 summit protests in Genoa, Italy, earlier that same year, and the assassination of controversial Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Together these three pieces bring the volume to an organic end. Chapter 14, Peter Jan Margry’s thoughtful recounting of his involvement in the compilation and disposition of materials from the various memorials constructed after the death of Fortuyn, on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Meertens Institute, serves as the volume’s conclusion.
As a whole, the volume is well-organized and accessible. The chapters, uniformly strong, are meticulously documented. In addition, many of them provide relevant URLs by which readers can access the materials in question. Every piece is accompanied by at least one photograph, with a total of forty illustrations in the collection. The index is logical and thorough. This important anthology is suitable as a text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, and absolutely indispensable to scholars working in this area, whatever their home discipline may be.
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[Review length: 837 words • Review posted on October 3, 2012]